


Infinitely Brave, Forlorn, and Lost

by jonathandrew_gr_off



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-13
Updated: 2014-01-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 07:52:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonathandrew_gr_off/pseuds/jonathandrew_gr_off
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine has been receiving anonymous love letters for years now, letters that he’s kept through relationships and break-ups, through high school and college. A part of him has known since the beginning where they were from, but something has always stopped him from pursuing it. But now they’ve stopped, and he can’t help himself anymore -- he wants to know why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

[December 12, 2011]

The first letter is left on Blaine’s table at the Lima Bean, somewhere in between the moment he left to go the bathroom and when he came back. At first, he thinks it was a mistake -- the envelope isn’t sealed, and the front is blank except for his name, written in a simple but elegant script. He looks around, as if he can somehow match the handwriting sample to someone’s face, but no one is looking at him; not even surreptitiously, as though they are hoping to catch his reaction.

He slides his thumb underneath the flap and flips it open, sliding a two pieces of thick, creamy paper out. It feels almost like silk beneath his fingertips, so he knows it has to be expensive stationary, but there’s no letterhead at the top, no helpful From the Desk Of or anything that might identify the sender. Blaine flips to the end of the letter and huffs in frustration -- it isn’t signed, either, at least not with an actual name.

_Dear Blaine --_

_We met just over a month ago today, and to be honest, for the past few weeks, I have barely been able to stop thinking about you. And you have to understand, I am not someone who is prone to passionate declarations of any sort, let alone those of a typical or cliche as the one I just wrote, or the others I’m about to put to this paper --_

_I haven’t been eating or sleeping. I haven’t been able to concentrate on school. I’ve even been dreaming about you, for God’s sake, and what’s worse, I’ve been daydreaming about you._

_The other day, for example, I was sitting in my French class -- which is an utter waste of time, so I suppose it wasn’t that much of a waste -- and instead of taking notes on how to conjugate the verbs “voir”, “à savoir”, and “à réaliser”, I was thinking about you._

_About how your shoulders would fit within the curve of my arm, how your head would nestle on my shoulder._

_About how you would melt into me the longer I held you._

_About how you would almost fall asleep, and then you would murmur my name and look up at me through those extraordinary eyelashes of yours, and you would kiss the corner of my mouth with the slightest brush of your lips._

_I have never in my life daydreamed about cuddling, Blaine. I don’t really even like to cuddle. I think it’s cloying and weird. I am not a cuddler, I am not a relationship person -- I am, however, a fantastic kisser, and I am most certainly a one-night stand kind of guy. Actually, one-night stands are sometimes too much commitment for me; quick blowjobs in the backseat of my car can be just as good._

_But you...I want you in the physical sense, in the way that I literally ache for you, to have you wrap your legs around my waist and feel your nails scrape down my back. I want to feel you, taste you, map and memorize you,_

_And I want...more. I want you, as a person. I want to know that you look forward to seeing me, to hearing from me. I want to know that you think about me. I want to know that you dream of me, that you wake up in the morning and you remember that I’m here and I’m yours, and that makes you happy._

_Because, damn it -- even though love is nothing more than a chemical reaction in the brain combined with the desperation of various corporations to make money; even though relationships in high school last as long as a piece of gum; even though (speaking of high school relationships) you insist on looking at Kurt Hummel like he’s a prince from a fairytale; even though, in point of fact, fairytales never come true -- I can feel myself falling for you, inevitably and irrevocably, like an avalanche gathering speed, hastening down the hill to bury me._

_Should I move out of the way? Should I just cut my losses? These are rhetorical questions -- I know the answers. Of course I should. For now, you belong to him, and later, you’ll find another man who isn’t good enough for you, but you’ll never realize that because you don’t see how truly breathtaking you are._

_I could fill pages and pages with how you deserve so much more than what Hummel can give you, with cloying Hallmark bullshit about your eyes and your smile, but I promised myself that if I went through with this -- and how I agonized over whether or not I would -- it would be two pages, max, and I’m running out of room._

_Let me just say that if you asked it of me, I would do anything; and that if being around you means turning a blind eye to all of his faults, I don’t mind living in the_ dark.

At the bottom of the letter, instead of a signature, there is a quote in the same elegantly simple handwriting --

_“You have bewitched me, body and soul.” -- Jane Austen, ‘Pride and Prejudice’_

He reads the letter so many times over the next few days -- right there, at that table in the Lima Bean; at all of the stop lights on the way home; during lunch breaks at school, even walking to and from classes -- and still, he can’t figure out who the writer is.

The voice is so distinctive that he feels like he can almost see the person who wrote it, as though he’s looking at someone through beveled glass -- the image slightly distorted, blurry, but such a fragile barrier that he should be able to break through. But at the same time, it’s frustratingly solid, and the more certain Blaine is that he should know, that it’s right on the tip of his tongue, the more elusive it becomes.

He takes it to school with him, stuffed back into its envelope and tucked discreetly into his history textbook. There’s a part of him that wants to tell someone, at least maybe Sam or Tina, but he knows that it isn’t particularly wise. He’s not a secretive person by nature, but he is cautious -- he has learned to be, after that night -- and he certainly isn’t one to rock the boat.

And this letter would probably tip the damn boat over, if he’s being honest with himself.

When Sam reaches over and tugs the book off Blaine’s desk, saying something about how he’s left his at home again and all he needs is to read the summary of Chapter 10, Blaine almost slaps it out of his hands. Sam gives him a look like a wounded golden retriever, and heat floods his cheeks even as he cradles it close to his chest.

“Sorry, just...my notes are in here, and you have Cheeto dust all over your hands,” he says, and Sam looks mollified, wiping his fingers hastily on his jeans as Blaine slides the envelope out and slips it safely into the front pouch of his backpack.

\---

Sitting up in bed, a week after he finds the letter, Blaine pulls it out from where he’s stashed it in his bedside drawer to read it for what may actually be the thousandth time. He runs the pad of his thumb over the parting quote as tenderly as you might touch a lover, certain lines jumping out at him --

_I have barely been able to stop thinking about you..._

_...I literally ache for you..._

_...I’m here and I’m yours..._

_...I can feel myself falling for you, inevitably and irrevocably..._

Blaine realizes he’s trembling ever so slightly, the pages rattling in his hands, and he puts it back in the drawer before he rips it. He doesn’t know what this means -- this letter, or the way this letter makes him feel -- but he is sure this won’t be the last, and that he won’t get any less confused over time.

His phone shimmies on the desk, sounding off a low drone, and when he picks it up, he sees Sebastian Smythe’s name flashing across the screen above the message: _“Hey, Killer, how’s it going?”_

He smiles faintly as he types out a reply. Whatever is going on, Sebastian will certainly be a nice distraction. He always is.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blaine has been receiving anonymous love letters for years now, letters that he’s kept through relationships and break-ups, through high school and college. A part of him has known since the beginning where they were from, but something has always stopped him from pursuing it. But now they’ve stopped, and he can’t help himself anymore — he wants to know why.

[November 4, 2012]

It’s been a month, exactly thirty days, and still Blaine can’t erase Kurt’s trembling lower lip, the way those blue eyes that had always looked at him with such trust and love suddenly filled with tears that washed that all away as surely as floodwaters could erode a riverbank, and the way he’d turned away from Blaine so had that the heel of his precious leather shoe had been scuffed on the pavement.

He spends most of those thirty days in bed if he’s not forced by his mother to go to school, wrapping himself in a cocoon of blankets that he ends up having to change that night because he’s soaked them and crusted them up with tears and snot. Every time the pain recedes, and he thinks maybe today might actually be a good day, something — an ad for Vogue.com popping up when he checks his e-mail, Blackbird coming up on Pandora, Moulin Rouge airing on TV — would come along like a rapid dog and sink its fangs into him, drawing blood and dragging him back down.

The only thing that resuscitates him even halfway is the arrival of a new letter, stuck in the slats of his locker. He whips his head around, as if he can somehow catch sight of the person who did this even though there’s no way for him to know how long ago they left the letter. His heart is pounding slightly out of rhythm, his hands trembling just enough that it’s a slight struggle to get the envelope free, and by the time he’s gotten to his car, adrenaline is pumping through his body so strongly that the edges of his vision have gone a little blurry.

This is the first time one of the letters has been left at school; before, it’s been at the Lima Bean, or sometimes they’re on his front porch, and one memorable moment where he pulled a copy ofThe Great Gatsby from the shelf in the Lima library and the letter fell out and landed on his foot. It means that someone at McKinley is in on it, probably someone in the New Directions, and if he knows them as well as he thinks he does, there are a few extremely likely suspects.

Just like before, there is only his name on the back of the envelope, and there’s no signature at the bottom of this one, either. This time, there’s a C.S. Lewis quote scrawled at the bottom, and Blaine smiles faintly, wondering if the letter writer knows how much he loves  _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe._

A car horn honks just behind him, and he cranes his neck to see Kitty and Ryder driving by in her car. Blaine waves his hand, inadvertently flashing the letter around like a white flag, and Ryder immediately ducks his head down, his cheeks seeming to go pink.

Blaine raises an eyebrow at Kitty, who shrugs and keeps on driving. He watches them go until the taillights are barely the size of his thumbnail. Twisting around into a proper position in his front seat, Blaine tries to think if he’s ever seen Ryder before he’s found a letter, if he’s seen him at the Lima Bean or the library. He knows Ryder knows where he lives because he’s had the whole New Directions over to his house a few times.

He wonders briefly if Ryder is the one who is writing the letters, but he dismisses that idea almost as soon as he has it. It’s pretty obvious that Ryder is completely into Marley, for one thing, and for another, it definitely doesn’t  _sound_ like him.

Blaine taps the letter, still folded up, on his knee for a few minutes before stuffing it back into the envelope and pulling out of the parking space, pointing his car toward home. He can feel the letter almost burning a hole through his jeans where he’s stuffed it into his pocket as he drives, but it seems oddly wrong to just read it in the car like it’s just a test he wants to go over.

But these letters are more special than that. He’s gotten one every few months for the past year, and as strange as it was to receive the first, he can’t imagine his life without them now. He got a box specially for them, a small wooden chest that he found at a garage sale. The lid is carved with lilies, which he’s had a fascination with ever since Rachel sat him down to watch  _Imagine Me and You_ with her.

_“The lily means, ‘I dare you to love me’.”_

It seems fitting, and now that he’s effectively ruined things with Kurt, he can admit it to himself now. It wasn’t just that Kurt was gone, that he was always busy, that even when they were able to call or Skype, Blaine could feel the distance between them like an invisible wall was slowly being built brick by brick the longer they were apart. It was also this boy — the one thing he does know for sure is that the letters are from a boy, because of a few letters that were mostly if not entirely explicit fantasies that only two boys could act out — whose letters had slowly begun to make him feel more than Kurt’s smile did.

He pulls into the driveway and shuts the engine off, pulling the letter out of his pocket and unfolding it just to run his gaze over the flow of that familiar handwriting.

Once he’s up in his room with the door shut, Blaine climbs onto the bed and gets comfortable, fluffing the pillows up against the headboard and leaning back against them. He’s a little hungry, but he never eats when he’s reading the letters because he’s afraid of leaving smudges of food on the beautiful, crisp paper.

They’re the best thing in his life now, these letters, and he needs them — almost desperately — to remain perfect.

_Dear Blaine —_

_I should be happy, but I’m not._

_For what seems like so long, but what is actually just a little over a year, I have been waiting for this day — I’ve been waiting for you to realize that Hummel isn’t worth your time, that you would move on from those big blue eyes and see that you could do so much better._

_But I can’t, because I know you’re hurting, and that absolutely kills me. If I thought I could make it better in any way, I would do it, but I know I’m not the one you need and I’m sure as hell not the one you want. I know what it’s like to love someone who doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore._

_I know that all you want is to be near him, even though looking at him feels like something is lacerating you from the inside out. I know that you pick up your phone, full of intent to call him or at least text him, before you remember that he doesn’t want to talk to you._

_It hurts me to know that you feel this way, because I have felt this way for months, and I would never wish this feeling on anyone, let alone you. You don’t deserve it, Blaine, you really don’t. You made a mistake, but that’s not the same thing as being a bad person._

_I remember the first time I met you, and all I’d heard is what an amazing guy you were. I was fully prepared to be disappointed — I assumed they were just trying to demoralize me as the new guy, and make it clear that I shouldn’t have any pretenses about standing out in this group. But then you came into the room, and I saw the way they looked at you; and I knew it didn’t have anything to do with me at all._

_They truly feel that way about you. They see all the best parts of you, and sometimes, that can be really great — but sometimes, it can be a lot of pressure._

_You aren’t a bad guy, Blaine, but you aren’t perfect, either. You’re kind-hearted, almost to the point of being tender. You’re one of the most talented people I’ve ever met (including me, and I’m pretty damn good, if I do say so myself — and unfortunately, I usually have to). You’re smart and you have more of a wicked sense of humor than a lot of people give you credit for._

_You’re wonderful, but you’re human. A fragile, strong, beautiful human who did something wrong, like humans are often prone to do._

_Remember that you deserve more than what you’re putting yourself through right now._

And then, the C.S. Lewis quote at the bottom, one that makes Blaine’s chest ache for himself as much as the letter writer —

_“To love at all is to be vulnerable.”_

Blaine folds the letter up and slides it back into its envelope, sliding the little wooden chest from where he keeps it underneath the bed. He rifles through them for a moment, feeling their weight on his fingertips, and is once again struck by the idea that not only has someone taken the time to write these letters to him, but to go through all this trouble — still, after about thirteen months, he has no idea who is writing them.

Except —

Maybe it’s because Blaine has almost completely stopped speaking to him, or maybe it’s an instinctive part of Blaine’s mind that recognizes the cadences of his voice even in print, but he at least has an idea.

Or —

Maybe Blaine just wants it to be him. Despite his cruel streak, because of his beauty, despite the seed of bitterness inside of him that sometimes seems on the point of blooming and ruining him forever, because of the vulnerability that Blaine had once been lucky enough to glimpse.

He sighs and tucks the chest back underneath the bed, turning out the light and snuggling down beneath the covers. Whoever it is, whether Blaine is right or wrong, he’s too tired to figure it out now.

—-

When he wakes up in the morning, the only thing Blaine can remember are green eyes and a touch so soft it seems to dissolve the moment it meets his skin.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blaine has been receiving anonymous love letters for years now, letters that he’s kept through relationships and break-ups, through high school and college. A part of him has known since the beginning where they were from, but something has always stopped him from pursuing it. But now they’ve stopped, and he can’t help himself anymore — he wants to know why.

[June 5, 2013]

Four hours before Blaine is due to walk across the stage and accept his high school diploma, he lays awake in the dark, gazing up at the ceiling.

His robe and mortarboard, both McKinley red, are hung up in his closet. The outfit he’ll wear underneath it -- a polo shirt and shorts, because of the unrelenting heat that the weatherman promised earlier this evening -- is draped across his desk chair, the way he used to put his Dalton uniform before he went to bed.

He finds that his stomach is sour with nerves, and every time he shifts in place or rolls over, it shakes inside him as though his bones are tectonic plates. Blaine scrubs at his eyes with the heels of his palms, sighing and sitting up, one hand going out to switch on his bedside lamp.

The new letter had come that morning, wedged under the windshield of his car after he’d run inside the comic book store for Sam’s graduation gift, but he hasn’t read it yet. Every time he finishes one and tucks it in the lily chest, he’s struck by the idea that this will be over soon; it’s been going on for so long that it seems almost routine, even though it’s never been regular -- sometimes he gets two in one month, then one almost six weeks later, and once, after the incident with the rocksalt slushy, he got a letter every week. And now he’s afraid that it’s going to be like everything else that’s made him happy, like Kurt and glee club, like the relationship he and Cooper attempted to build with each other before his brother became too busy with work to answer an e-mail, that it’s just going to fade away and he’ll waste all of his time hoping for it to come back.

It’s sitting on his bedside table, the creamy white envelope catching the light like fresh fallen snow. Blaine picks it up and lets it rest in his lap, gazing at his name written on the envelope.

He’s been receiving these letters for three years, three incredibly long, beautiful, horrible years, and he knows he can’t keep acting like he doesn’t know who they’re from anymore. It has been clear from the first letter, that first moment -- who else would do something like this? Who else sounds like that?

They had so many conversations over the first few months of their -- well, he can’t call it a friendship, because it was more, and he can’t call it a relationship, because it was less -- whatever it was, that he knows that voice, probably better than anyone. What they had was an in-between state that tore him apart as much as it scintillated him, and losing it had been like being deposited from a tempest onto an island. Sure, there was safety here, stability, but he missed flying high on the crest of the waves.

He missed being called “Killer”. He missed how he could feel every inch of his body whenever those green eyes took him in. He missed him, his wit and his snide comments that made Blaine laugh even though they shouldn’t have, his impossibly long legs, his laugh, that special soft smile that he seemed to reserve just for Blaine.

But he couldn’t forget the way Kurt had looked at him that night, the way his first thought had been Sebastian. He’s just now getting Kurt to begin to trust him again, to want to be with him; he can’t risk that, just because of a confusing tumult of feelings that he’s never quite been able to sort through.

He picks up the envelope and pulls the letter free, unfolding it. The writing, curled and spidery, starts to swim and run together on the page, but Blaine still doesn’t realize he’s crying until a tear splashes onto the corner of the page, dissolving it until it’s as thin as tissue paper.

Blaine puts the letter back again and grabs his phone instead, scrolling through the contacts until he reaches Nick Duvall’s number.

 _Hey_ , he types out. _Do you have Sebastian’s number by any chance?_

There’s a rapid response, which doesn’t surprise him. He knows this is a strange request, especially coming from him.

_...yeah, I do. Why?_

He sighs -- how is he supposed to explain this to Nick, when he can’t even reason it out in his own head? Blaine doesn’t know why Sebastian is at the forefront of his mind so often, why he’s been in his dreams more than once in these past few months, why he’s sometimes found himself fantasizing about what it would be like to hold Sebastian, to kiss him, to make love to him and wake him next to him in the morning.

He can’t say, I think I’m in love with him, because he loves Kurt; it’s what he tells himself with a conviction that he would swear to anyone else is ironclad. But a part of him, a small but verbose part of him, wonders if maybe he and Kurt are better off as friends, if a spark of emotion for Sebastian hadn’t been lit years ago.

Instead, he just answers, _Please give it to me. I just need to talk to him, okay?_

But when Nick texts him the number a few minutes later, Blaine just stares at it, as if the numbers are completely foreign symbols that he’s never seen before and can’t possibly hope to decipher. He types the number into a new text message window, adds the contact, and sets the phone inside, picking up the letter for a second time.

_Dear Blaine,_

_The more of these letters I send, the more I fall for you._

_I wish there was a way you could respond. Maybe there is -- we both know I’m clever enough to come up with one, even if it’s unorthodox -- but I think I’m just afraid of what you would say. And I’m afraid of you coming to the wrong conclusions about who I am. I like to think that you know me, or knew me, well enough to be able to figure it out. It would break my heart (and yes, even my stony cold heart is capable of breaking) if you thought I was someone else._

_But I picture you reading them. I picture you laughing at the parts you think are funny, shaking your head with that little smile on your face when you think I’m being gauche. I picture that cute crinkle you get between your eyebrows when you’re thinking hard about something. I picture the way you nibble on your lip, the way your hands would grip the paper hard enough to smudge the ink._

_I picture the way you would look at me before you realized what you were doing, before Kurt crept back into your head like a weed -- that look gave me so much hope, Blaine, so much that it hurt. Because sometimes the way you looked at me made me think, made me pray, that there was some little part of you that could possibly fall for me._

_Am I wrong? Is it completely illogical to think that your feelings for me go beyond friendship?_

_Were we ever really just friends? There was always something more between us, Blaine, you know there was. I could feel it, and so could you. That’s why it hurt so much when you pushed me aside -- all I wanted was your forgiveness, and maybe I didn’t deserve it, but I never thought you would think that way, too._

_I thought I would have gotten over you ages ago, but obviously that isn’t true...if anything, I think I’ve built you up more and more in my mind. You’re...you’re my first love, and maybe I’ll find someone else, but I know I won’t be able to love them the same way. Maybe if I could just let you go, I wouldn’t feel so strongly, but how can you let go of what you never had?_

_I guess the only answer is to let go of the hope, of the future you thought you could have, of the daydreams and the wishes. And, you know, the love letters you’ve been writing to them for years._

_But I don’t know how. How do I stop, Blaine? How can I stop loving someone who is kind, generous, loving? Someone whose smile turns heads, even if he doesn’t realize it? Someone who is talented enough to make even a narcissist like me take notice? Someone who is all the more beautiful for their imperfections, because without them, he wouldn’t be exactly who he is?_

_I love you. You’ve known that for a long time, I think you knew before I even started writing these letters -- but every time I think that might actually matter to you, I’m proved wrong._

_And then you asked him to marry you._

_I wondered why I wasn’t dying, actually, physically dying, because that’s what it felt like. A part of me wished I was -- a tiny part, but it hurt so much. I pictured showing up to the wedding -- uninvited, of course, because you can’t bring yourself to invite me and Kurt would rather die -- and watching you slip that wedding band onto his finger, watching you kiss him as your new husband._

_All the while, thinking, “That could have been me.”_

_The most that I ever wanted from you was for you to realize, that, too -- maybe not to love me back, I won’t ask for that much. I just want you to acknowledge, even if it’s just to yourself, that we could have had something and it could have been beautiful._

_“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”  -- Neil Gaiman_

Blaine folds up the letter and plucks his phone from the bedspread, calling up Sebastian’s newly installed contact.

Would it really be that difficult to admit that, yes, there was a spark between them and that, yes, if they’d let it -- if Blaine had let it -- it could have been life changing?

The longer he stares at the blank screen, the more he thinks that nothing could possibly be more difficult. Because for so long now, he’s operated on the belief that he’s never loved anyone but Kurt, that he never will, and that the love was so strong and visceral and lasting that the pain he put them both through was worth it, because in the end, they came back together stronger and more in love than ever. So if he really, truly entertains the possibility of he and Sebastian, if he takes the time to imagine what it could have been and agree that it would have been special, then what was it all for?

But the lie terrifies him, because it’s like a ticking time bomb, waiting to go off. Blaine knows it could destroy him, and Kurt, and possibly Sebastian as well.

Before he can stop himself, or maybe before he can think too much and thereby stop himself, Blaine types out, _I miss you_ , and hits send, wondering if Sebastian still has his number or if it will just seem like a stranger texting him out of the blue. He wonders what he’d do either way.

Despite the fact that it’s now almost five in the morning, an answer comes back quickly, and Blaine knows Sebastian never deleted his contact information.

_Are you actually going to do anything about it?_

Instead of answering, Blaine shuts his phone off and shoves it into his bedside drawer, slamming it shut so hard that the lamp sways dangerously, tipping off the edge and blowing out upon impact.

\--

Across town, Sebastian Smythe sends a second message, one that won’t be received until 2:30 p.m. the next day.

_I miss you, too._

  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blaine has been receiving anonymous love letters for years now, letters that he’s kept through relationships and break-ups, through high school and college. A part of him has known since the beginning where they were from, but something has always stopped him from pursuing it. But now they’ve stopped, and he can’t help himself anymore -- he wants to know why.

[July 21st, 2017]

“Hey, Killer. Long time, no see.”

His voice is like velvet, like honey, like slipping into your warm bed on a winter’s night and watching the sky stretch like cotton batting as snow starts to fall. Blaine feels something shift in his chest, like his heart is breaking out of some sort of cocoon, but his neck is stiff as he turns his head to  look at Sebastian.

“Hey,” he says quietly, carefully, like he’s speaking to a wild animal that could tear his throat open should he make one wrong move. “How have you been?”

Sebastian smiles the thin, faint smile that Blaine recognizes, the one that he knows means there’s a wall up between them now that was never there before. It hurts, probably more than it should, because he’s always liked to think that he was one of the few who knew the real Sebastian, and losing that feels as though someone has pulled the ticket to heaven right from his fingers.

“I’ve been good,” Sebastian answers, dropping into the seat across from Blaine without being invitation, something that makes him feel better because this is something the Sebastian he had once known would do. “I haven’t gotten my wedding invitation in the mail yet. Did Hummel decide that I’d be too much of a distraction?”

The corner of Sebastian’s mouth tilts up in his signature smirk, and then when Blaine drops his eyes to the table, Sebastian leans forward, his expression suddenly serious. “Blaine?”

“We broke it off,” Blaine answers, his voice soft, fingers tangling together on the tabletop. “I...I just couldn’t.”

“Why?”

When he glances at Sebastian, he sees a genuine concern; Sebastian’s eyebrows are knit together, one hand splayed on the tabletop between them as though he would reach out to Blaine. The truth rises to his lips like mist off a river -- the letters made me fall in love with you all over again, and I couldn’t marry someone else -- but there are so many different things to explain in that one sentence alone, and it seems exhausting.

In the silence, Sebastian just looks at him, and Blaine knows. He knows Sebastian never really meant for those letters to be a secret, because they have both always been aware of what there is between them. He knows that Sebastian isn’t here in New York by coincidence, although he isn’t sure whether or not Sebastian knows what has happened between him and Kurt.

And he knows that all his attempts over the years to kill these feelings, to yank them up as though they were weeds that would just crop up tenfold to replace the ones he’d thrown away, were, in the end, utterly useless.

It’s you, he wants to say. I love you.

Sebastian drums his fingers on the table, his chin propped on his hand, and then says, with the air of someone admitting a dark secret: “I really missed you, Blaine.”

He remembers the text message from a few years ago, the one that lit up his phone as he switched it on an hour after stepping off the stage at graduation, the last one Sebastian ever sent to him; the one he didn’t reply to. _I miss you._

Even then, Blaine knew what it must have cost him to send that -- Sebastian, who was aloof to the point of sometimes being cold, who held emotion in check behind his eyes like a dam penning up a flood. Confessing something like that would have been as painful as yanking a tooth, and he’d said nothing in return.

“I missed you, too,” he says, and Sebastian flickers his eyes down to Blaine’s mouth before meeting his gaze again, as though Blaine’s breath would have fogged up the air between them had he been lying.

Sebastian is quiet for a few moments, his eyebrows beetled together as he gazes at Blaine, his attention as rapt as ever. It looks like he’s about to say something -- his lips part, he leans forward -- and then a tinny, muted version of Kesha’s Cannibal starts emitting from Sebastian’s pocket. “Oh, sorry,” he says, digging it out and glancing at the screen. “Do you mind?”

Blaine shakes his head, and Sebastian taps the screen, lifts the phone to his ear. “Hey,” he says. “What’s up?”

He hums and issues the occasional “Yeah” or “Uh-huh”, gazing into the middle distance. Blaine lets his eyes wander around the cafe, only half paying attention to the rise and fall of Sebastian’s voice, waiting for his conversation to end.

And then--

“Okay, babe. Love you too.”

Blaine’s head snaps up so violently that his neck cracks; his heart is thundering at the base of his throat, and it feels like his body is shaking apart like a house in an earthquake even though he’s actually completely still.

Sebastian ends the call and stuffs the phone back in his pocket, bright eyes fastened on Blaine’s face. He tries desperately to compose his features, but he can feel his mouth tremble just once before he grits his teeth to prevent it.

“Your boyfriend?” Blaine forges ahead, grateful that at least his voice is neutral, and Sebastian nods, the simple gesture threatening to fracture Blaine’s control.

“Jordan,” he says. “Jordy. It’s been almost a year. We’re celebrating this weekend, that’s what he was calling about. To make sure I remembered to make a reservation at our favorite little Italian place.”

The way he so baldly states these things, like they’re scores on a test or a phone number -- cold, clear digits -- almost hurts more than if his voice had been infused with love. _Don’t you care about anything? Don’t you care about me?_

But Blaine knows this is unfair, knows that when it comes to him Sebastian cares more than he cares about anyone. Sebastian stands up, Blaine’s hands twitching on the tabletop as though he would reach out to stop him from leaving.

“Hey,” he says, and Sebastian pauses, looks at him. “Why don’t we, uh...meet up for dinner later? Maybe tomorrow night?”

Sebastian gives him a faint, inscrutable Cheshire cat smile. “Sure, killer,” he says. “Do you know that Chinese place just around the block from here? Fantastic shrimp-fried rice.”

Blaine’s lips twitch -- he knows for a fact that Sebastian loathes shrimp, because he told him so during one of those hours-long text conversations they’d had so long ago. But Blaine himself loves all sorts of seafood.

“Yeah. Sounds great.”

He watches Sebastian go, doesn’t look away until the tall, lanky figure is swallowed up in the crowds walking around outside, until there is nothing striking about him at all anymore.

\--

He spends an hour on choosing a bowtie alone, and another two on the rest of the outfit. No matter how many times he tells himself otherwise, this feels like a date; and he can’t help the butterflies.

The trouble is, Sebastian has always made him feel this way -- no matter who Blaine was with, no matter how long they went without speaking, Sebastian just makes Blaine feel that giddy, electric vortex in the pit of his stomach like you get when you’re teetering at the top of a roller coaster.

When he steps into the restaurant, he notices Sebastian immediately, sitting at a table near the back, directly underneath one of the red paper lanterns strung along the wall. The light falls on his face like it’s grateful to be there, highlighting his cheekbones, turning his lips into a work of art.

“Hey,” he says, slipping into the seat opposite Sebastian. “Have you been here long?”

Sebastian shakes his head. “No. But I went ahead and ordered. I was really hungry.”

“It’s okay,” Blaine murmurs, and folds his hands together on the tabletop, on top of the paper placemat with the menu printed on it in English and Mandarin, to hide the fact that they’re trembling just a little.

Slowly, he reaches out and brushes the back of Sebastian’s hand with the very tips of his fingers, so lightly that in the soft glow of the lanterns, Sebastian may not even notice. Blaine withdraws his hand as the waiter arrives with their food, steaming platters of shrimp-fried rice, fried wontons, sweet and sour chicken, pepper steak -- it’s a feast.

“A celebration,” Sebastian says, as if in addition to Blaine’s thought. “Of us reconnecting.”

“And your anniversary,” Blaine counters before he can stop himself. “Early.”

Sebastian cuts a piece of chicken into quarters and eats them before answering, “Right.”

Blaine clears his throat. He isn’t sure how to proceed, how to say what he wants to say.

“Do you love him?”

The words hang in the air between them, and it takes Blaine a moment to realize that he’s the one who said them. Sebastian just looks at him, his face utterly blank. He shakes his head, not in denial but as though he can’t believe it.

“What you really want to know,” he says, after taking a sip of his iced tea, “is if I still love you.”

Really, he shouldn’t be surprised -- whatever one may say about him, Sebastian doesn’t sugarcoat or beat around the bush, is honest to the point that sometimes, you’d prefer the lie.

“Do you?” Blaine breathes.

Sebastian stands up, his wallet appearing in his hand like a magic trick, and tosses several bills down onto the table. “Come on,” he says. “This isn’t a public conversation.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blaine has been receiving anonymous love letters for years now, letters that he’s kept through relationships and break-ups, through high school and college. A part of him has known since the beginning where they were from, but something has always stopped him from pursuing it. But now they’ve stopped, and he can’t help himself anymore — he wants to know why.

They’re standing in the middle of Sebastian’s living room, which is littered with the pieces of his and Jordan’s life, everyday household items that nonetheless feel like knives in Blaine’s chest -- a sweatshirt that is too small to be Sebastian’s, a book open facedown on the coffee table, a pair of reading glasses perched beside it.

A chasm is between them, even though they’re standing only a few feet apart. Blaine keeps swallowing, trying to dispel the lump in his throat, trying to think of something, anything, to say that would fix this.

“Sebastian,” he whispers, but Sebastian is shaking his head, his lean body trembling.

“Don’t,” Sebastian snaps, the word cracking like a whip. “Don’t, Blaine. You can’t fucking do this to me.”

For a second, it seems like he’s going to walk out, but he either remembers that this is his apartment or he just loses his strength. He drops onto the couch as though his legs have given out underneath him, covering his eyes with his hand. Blaine wants to sit next to him, to hold him, but he chooses the ottoman instead, lacing his fingers together in his lap and waiting for Sebastian to tell him to leave.

This isn’t at all the way Blaine had thought -- well, hoped -- this was going to go.

The drive over here had been near silent, the radio playing softly and filling the silence between them like smoke. Streetlamps had caressed Sebastian’s face with fragile golden palms, turning his skin to bronze, his eyes to slivers of jade, and threw his elegant bone structure into sharp relief. Blaine occasionally turned his head to watch the streets and apartment buildings slide by, but most of the time, he was looking at Sebastian; later, the sight of his gilded profile would be burned so strongly into Blaine’s memory that it would feature in his dreams for months.

Sebastian’s lips curved up as Blaine glanced back at him for the umpeenth time, and Blaine felt his cheeks get hot. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, but Sebastian just shook his head, his smile growing.

“It’s fine,” he said, tilting his head to grin at Blaine properly as they pulled up to a stoplight. “I know it’s hard to look away.”

For a moment, for a wonderful, easy moment, it was like it had been in high school, when Sebastian flirted with Blaine mercilessly like a cheetah stalking its prey and Blaine, burning with embarrassment and desire at the same time, let him. Blaine’s blush was as easy now as it had been then, and Sebastian seemed just as amused by it.

And then the silence stretched too long again, the light had turned green and Sebastian had been forced to look back at the road. Blaine’s hands twitched in his lap more than once, an ache deep in his bones that begged him to reach out and touch, just once, even briefly, just Sebastian’s arm or his hand.

They had pulled into the parking garage adjacent to a high-rise that’s all glass and steel; Blaine found himself staring at the vast lobby, all marble and sleek mahogany, the chairs grouped around the glass-topped coffee table upholstered in fine black leather.

“Wow,” he said, and Sebastian had chuckled.

“I’m a trust fund kid, and so is Jordy,” he said. “And we’re both employed, surprisingly. We have plenty of money.”

The casual use of the boyfriend’s name -- and not even his full name, but an affectionate little nickname -- made the small smile that had started to appear on Blaine’s face fade away, and Sebastian’s bright, intense gaze on his face picked it up.

“He’s out of town until the day before our anniversary,” Sebastian said. “He works for his dad’s law firm and sometimes he has to travel to see a client.”

It wasn’t until they were settled on the couch -- also leather -- that Blaine said, “You didn’t answer my question.”

Sebastian looked at him, cocking an eyebrow at him. “The one you actually asked, or the one you meant?”

He ducked his head, his cheeks blazing so fiercely that he could practically feel them giving off heat. Sebastian went into the kitchen and poured them both a cup of coffee, pressing the mug into Blaine’s hands and sitting next to him, waiting with surprising patience. Blaine glanced up at him, trying to read his face, but his expression was utterly inscrutable.

“Both?” he said tentatively, and Sebastian sat back, sipping at his coffee.

“Yes.” There was a pause, one that lasted so long Blaine imagined he could feel it growing, like a balloon expanding, and then: “And yes.”

Blaine felt the bottom drop out of his stomach, his throat constricting to the width of a thread. “You -- ?”

Shrugging, as if none of this mattered, as if it couldn’t potentially be life-changing, Sebastian set his mug down on the coffee table, next to the book. “You were my first love, Blaine,” he said. “That doesn’t just go away.”

He got up and went back into the kitchen, returning with a bottle of Baileys. “Hm?”

“I--no…”

Sebastian spiked his coffee and took a deep drink, closing his eyes and humming softly. When he glanced back at Blaine, he tilted his head at him, like a cat spotting prey.

“What are you thinking?”

The truth was, Blaine was not thinking; or, rather, he wasn’t thinking of anything coherent, wasn’t thinking of anything except Sebastian’s lips molding against his, of crashing against him like a wave against the shore. Maybe something of his thoughts showed in his face, or maybe Sebastian hadn’t lost that perceptive edge that had always made Blaine feel like the other boy could read his mind.

“Now?” was all he said, and it made Blaine feel as though he had been caught committing a crime. “Now, Blaine?”

Blaine could not look at him. His head suddenly felt unbearably heavy; it bowed toward his lap, a flower beaten down by rain. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“You’re sorry,” Sebastian repeated flatly. “You’re sorry?”

Abruptly, he stood and set his coffee mug down hard on the table, hard enough that some of his Irish coffee slopped over the edge and splattered the glass. Blaine jumped, his heart catapulting up against the roof of his mouth; he stared at Sebastian, who stalked away from him and down the hall. He heard a door slam, and he was sure he could feel the impact in his bones.

He waited for what seemed like an hour but what, according to the clock resting on the mantle beneath a vast flat-screen TV, was only twenty minutes.

Now Blaine’s hands are shaking as he gets to his feet -- everything felt disjointed and off, as if this wasn’t actually happening. He can’t believe it had gone so horrifically wrong so fast.

And then Sebastian comes back out, his face white.

“I waited for you,” he says. “I waited! You were the first person who saw me, who cared about me, and then you just left me. You chose Kurt. I fucking watched you propose to him, I helped you! Even though it killed me, I helped you, Blaine. Because I thought it was what you wanted. I thought he would make you happy.”

Blaine just stares at him, feeling helpless and full of self-loathing. “I’m -- I just -- those letters…”

“Those were a mistake,” Sebastian responds. “They were pathetic.”

“No!” Blaine surges forward and catches at Sebastian’s arm. “I loved them. I still do. I have them all, every single one. I’ve always kept them with me.”

Sebastian just stares at him; he’s crying, and Blaine has never seen Sebastian cry before -- he’s never seen him like this, broken down and vulnerable, and for the first time, he seems...small. With his lean body and long legs, it’s not like Sebastian has ever been a bulky man, but he’s always carried himself in a way that would make him seem tall even if he was the same height as Rachel.

When Sebastian Smythe walks into a room, you notice, no matter how you feel about him. He gives off an aura of charisma and charm like the sun throws off heat, in the same effortless, undeniable way.

But now, with tears dribbling down his cheeks like afterthoughts, his shoulders hunched so severely that he’s almost bent double, he looks like a little boy, angry and hurt.

“You knew,” he accuses Blaine. “You knew. You knew before you texted me that night before graduation, didn’t you? And you didn’t say anything. You kept choosing Kurt, over and over, even without realizing it -- every time you decided not to say anything, every time you read one of my letters and just put them away, you chose him and you hurt me.”

Sebastian draws his arm away. “And now that I have someone, someone I care about and who cares about me, you come in here and you try to fuck it up with all these questions that should have been answered six years ago!”

“I-I’m not,” Blaine protests weakly. “I swear, I swear, Sebastian, I would never...I just -- those letters, they...they didn’t make me fall in love with you, they made me realize I already was. Okay? And I -- you’re...you’re -- terrifying.”

“Terrifying?” Sebastian’s eyebrows draw together. “Why? Because of the slushee?”

Blaine shakes his head. “I forgave you for that,” he says. “I swear. But you...you’re so -- unpredictable. Kurt was...stable. Steady. He didn’t…” He trails off, stuck on searching for a word.

“Challenge you,” Sebastian says. “And you need that, Blaine. You deserve that. You deserve someone who isn’t going to let your relationship turn into just another facet of your life. You deserve someone who is going to make love an adventure, not background noise.”

Blaine’s cheeks flush hot, and he looks away. He’s always been torn between the siren’s song that is Sebastian Smythe, and the reliability of Kurt. Even when they were broken up, a part of Blaine had known he and Kurt would get back together, like the needle of a compass swinging toward north.

But with Sebastian, even now, he’s not sure. He’s never been sure. Sometimes those green eyes of him are as expressive as the ocean, and sometimes they’re flat, cold.

Sometimes, in high school, he’d been sure Sebastian was in love with him, had seen a warmth in his face that threatened to undo everything. But then it would go out, a flame doused by a strong wind, and it wasn’t until he started receiving those letters that Blaine had known this, at least, was something he could be sure of with Sebastian.

Now, though, he’s lost again. Sebastian is looking at him and his face is inscrutable, but there’s something beseeching in his gaze, trapped behind a layer of anger. He reaches for him again, this time grasping at his hand like a supplicant.

“Please,” he says softly, though he isn’t entirely sure what he’s begging for. “Sebastian…”

Sebastian shakes his head, biting his lip. “Give me time to think about it,” he whispers, and hope burgeons in Blaine’s chest. “I can’t just…end a year-long relationship on a whim, you know?”

Blaine squeezes his hand and he swears, just for a second, that Sebastian squeezes back. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. I’ll -- or you’ll --?”

“I’ll call you,” Sebastian promises.

He shows Blaine to the door and they stand there together for a few minutes, long enough for Blaine to realize that Sebastian hasn’t let go of his hand.

“I’ll call you,” he repeats, and Blaine nods.

Stepping out into the hallway, Sebastian’s fingers slip through his as he pulls his hand away. The door closes between them and Blaine is standing in the hall alone, wondering if he’ll ever actually hear Sebastian’s voice again.


End file.
